Biden suspects toxic exposure in Iraq killed Beau. He has a plan for ill veterans

[ffr]

Joe Biden, like many other families of service members diagnosed with illnesses from overseas deployments, suspects toxic exposure may have been behind his son Beau’s brain cancer.

Beau Biden boarded a military aircraft for Iraq on Nov. 19, 2008, just days after his father became vice president-elect. He deployed with the Delaware Army National Guard to Balad Air Base, where the U.S. military burned an estimated 140 tons of waste a day in open air burn pits.

When he died in 2015, Beau Biden was 46.
-snip-

“We are overdue,” said Jeremy Butler, chief executive officer of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA). “It’s just like with K2, where it’s been 20 years, and they’ve got nothing, no health care, no response from the government.”
-snip

“Our goal is to go into 2021 with a renewed focus,” Butler said. “The fact we now have President-elect Biden is going to make it a lot easier to get something done. He is someone who understands in a way few civilians do.” - McClatchy

Great open forum video at the link. Brief and worth watching. So glad we elected Joe Biden for president. We made America great again by doing so.

[SheltieLover]

1. K&R!

[Blue Owl]

2. Joe Biden: problem solver. Donald tRump: problem maker.

[ancianita]

7. +1,000,000

[KentuckyWoman]

3. Biden - listening to veterans. Trump - trying to take away their vote.

That pretty much says it all.

[Cha]

4. TY Joe Biden President Elect for

going after the root of the tragic crises.

[Ilsa]

5. If Beau had just not tested for it,

He wouldn't have had brain cancer, according to the way trumpers think.

[okojo]

6. Cancer happens

It could be causation, it could be correlation of what happened to Beau Biden in Iraq. It could be many things that caused Beau Biden's cancer. I am not trying to minimalize President Elect Biden's suspicion, but it still has to be looked as speculative. Unless there many people in Biden's unit developing cancer as well, or this specific cancer..

It doesn't take away President Elect Biden's and his family's pain.

[Duppers]

8. The only thing I know is that a neighbor's husband

Came back from Iraq very sick and died shortly afterwards. Left 2 young boys.

[Hekate]

11. Depleted uranium was damn near everywhere in Iraq, & it was brought in by America...

There was a fair amount of discussion about it here at the time. Can’t remember the name of the vet and the journalist who tried so hard to get the message out. All I remember is that a cluster were in San Francisco, and that wives were getting sick as well. One comment that pierced my heart was: Every baby born before our husbands deployed to Iraq was healthy, and since they got back, not a single baby has been born healthy.

Dubya’s administration was damned careless with the health of our military personnel. Too busy giving out contracts to private contractors, including Eric Prince, brother of Betsy De Vos.

[onetexan]

13. OMG this is exactly the same situation as Agent Orange exposure in Vietnam

We need to take care of vets and their families. We need a compassionate, empathetic, socially aware president who respects the military, understands their struggles, and will help pass legislation and provide other means of assistance as President-elect Biden, not call them losers and suckers.

[okojo]

16. I do think there is a link with depleted uranium and cancer

Cancer rates skyrocketed in Iraq after the Iraq war, especially for children. Mainly it was leukemia and lymphoma.. It could be other by products of American munitions.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6171401/

[MojoWrkn]

18. I have a young friend whose husband was deployed prior to 2008 and also was exposed! When she

became pregnant with their 1st child, she learned late in the pregnancy that the baby had Trisome 13 and the doctors told her the baby would not live much past birth IF it were born alive! These were young people (in their early 20s) and she was given this info too late in the pregnancy for an abortion (she thought the doctor planned that) plus, they couldn't afford to travel to have that done. The baby was not viable in the last months of the pregnancy but she had to carry it to term and deliver a lifeless baby! I believe her husband's chromosomes were damaged as a result of his exposure to toxic chemicals in Iraq. This couple have since had 2 beautiful boys but this mother doesn't ever forget about her 1st born! I blame Erik Prince for much of the damage done to young people in Iraq. His only concern was money and lining his and Cheney's pockets).

[okojo]

15. Was it cancer that kilied him?

[Duppers]

20. It was...

Either leukemia or lymphoma. I've forgotten. 😣

[MojoWrkn]

34. The baby died from horrible birth defects passed on by his father and I believe it was due to the

father's exposure to something toxic in Iraq! The baby was not born alive but she had to carry him to term because it was too late for an abortion unless they went out of state and they couldn't afford that.

[Hekate]

12. Agent Orange in Vietnam. Depleted uranium in Iraq. Pay attention & you might understand ...

...that our military personnel are just disposable units to humanoids like Dick Cheney and Donald Trump.

[MojoWrkn]

19. and don't forget Donald Rumsfelt and his comment about troops being "fungible"!

fun·gi·ble
/ˈfənjəbəl/
Learn to pronounce
adjectiveLAW
(of goods contracted for without an individual specimen being specified) able to replace or be replaced by another identical item; mutually interchangeable.
"it is by no means the world's only fungible commodity"

[Hekate]

26. Ah yes, Rumsfeld, may he rot in Hell. Somehow I missed that comment ...

...about human beings being fungible.

[mopinko]

17. cancer takes 2 things- a genetic predisposition and an immune system failure.

young, strong ppl often have the 1st, but rarely have the second.
that's the facts.

[womanofthehills]

29. Toxic chemicals & drugs can compromise your immune system

In addition to environmental chemicals, a large number of therapeutic substances, as well as abused recreational drugs, can alter immune function in humans. Among these are diphenylhydantoin, ethanol, cocaine, and isobutyl nitrites (Newell et al., 1984; Specter et al., 1986).

-----

Aromatic Hydrocarbons

Probably the most extensively studied class of environmental pollutants are halogenated aromatic hydrocarbons (HAHs), including dibenzo-p-dioxins, dibenzofurans, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), and polybrominated biphenyls (PBBs) (Vos and Luster, 1989). These compounds, many of which are widespread in the environment, are primarily used in commercial production of industrial chemicals, pesticides, flame retardants, and heat conductors. Dioxins and PCBs produce myelosuppression, immunosuppression, thymic atrophy, and inhibition of immune complement system components in almost all species tested, including primates. The most potent dioxin, TCDD, is an extremely potent immunosuppressant in mice. A dose of 1-2 µg/kg of body weight is all that is required to reduce immune function by 50%. As probably occurs with a number of immunosuppressive HAHs, the specific effects of TCDD on the immune system can vary, depending on the age of the animal at the time of chemical exposure. For example, the primary effect of perinatal TCDD exposure is persistent suppression of cellular immunity, a condition that mimics neonatal thymectomy. In contrast to perinatal exposure, TCDD exposure in adult mice, while still inducing deterioration of thymic tissue (predominantly cortical lymphoid depletion), causes a transient antiproliferative response in rapidly dividing cell populations, including hematopoietic cells and B cells. The marked and persistent suppression of T-cell function seen in neonates is not manifested in adults, although suppression of cytotoxic T-cell response and altered members of regulatory T cells have been reported.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK235670/

[mopinko]

31. yup.

[greyl]

9. K & R nt

[SleeplessinSoCal]

10. Forgot about McClatchy.

They are a reliable source that deserves more readership.

[ChazII]

14. My son died in March of this year from the same cancer

that killed Beau, Teddy and John. He was 35. GBM's are diagnosed at stage IV.

[Beaverhausen]

24. I lost a good friend to GBM in Dec 2018

I'm sorry about your son. My friend fought hard and beat the odds for 4 years.

She was a very good and prolific cook. We think the proximity of the microwave to where she cooked/prepared food may have contributed, but who really knows.

[ChazII]

30. I am sorry for the loss of your friend.

My son's tumor was in his thalamus and he did not make the 15 month that the team predicted. We think his may have been caused by neurofibromatosis.

[PatSeg]

21. This is something I've suspected

for some time now. We've heard so many stories of soldiers coming back from Iraq and becoming seriously ill due to exposure to toxic chemicals.

[burrowowl]

22. Not only the soldiers but the Iraqi people as well

[jalan48]

23. Open Burn Pits in Iraq and Afghanistan

A private contractor tossed U.S. military waste in Iraq and Afghanistan into giant pits and burned it. Now soldiers forced to breathe the toxic fumes are sick or dying—and the government is using faulty science to evade responsibility.


https://newrepublic.com/article/138058/things-burned



“The smell was horrendous,” said Mr. Robinson, who was in Iraq from 2006 to 2007.

About nine years after returning home to Indiana, where he worked as a corrections officer, he began to suffer headaches and other health problems, which doctors attributed to post-traumatic stress. After having a seizure while driving on Christmas Day last year, though, he was told he had glioblastoma, an aggressive brain tumor.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/12/us/politics/veterans-burn-pits-congress.html

[demigoddess]

25. I believe there was a cluster or two of babies born to soldiers who served over there

who were born with birth defects as a result of those depleted uranium weapons. Also there were many Iraqi children born with horrendous birth defects in those years also. I have a handicapped daughter born in the Vietnam era. The first thing the doctors asked me was "was your husband exposed to Agent Orange?" Not my husband, but there were others.

[Hekate]

28. Yes. I'm still trying to remember the name of the American journalist who investigated ...

...in the early years.

Oddly, although I had known the song Masters of War since it first came out in the 1960s, it was BushCheney’s war where the song came up out of my memory and gut-punched me. The profiteering was just so naked.

There’s a very lengthy article on DU in Wiki, here.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depleted_uranium

[KewlKat]

27. My spouse survived Vietnam but the agent orange is

Killing him. This past spring he finally received a 100% disability rating. It was a hard fight but I pushed until he received the benefit he earned. I hope others with service connected health issues the best of luck winning their cases.

[Brainfodder]

32. JB has been through the ringer in life, and STILL was willing to go through this at 77!

That was all I needed to know.

[niyad]

33. As an aside. . Beau was 46 when he died. Joe is going to be #46 (unless traitor does not last).